Already Has $75,000 To Help Armenians -nyt19151007b
ALREADY HAS $75,000 TO HELP ARMENIANS
Rockefeller Foundation Leads Donations to American Committee with $30,000
OCTOBER 7, 1915
The Rockefeller Foundation contributed $30,000 yesterday to the fund being raised to aid the Armenians who are being driven from their homes by the Turkish Government. This brings the amount already collected up to $75,000.
In connection with its appeal for funds to aid the victims of Turkish abuses, issued on Monday, the American Committee on Atrocities in Armenia, from its offices at 70 Fifth Avenue, made public yesterday letters received in New York within the last two or three days detailing the reported misdeeds of the Turkish authorities in their treatment of the Armenians. In giving out the new of the committee said:
"We assume that a large number of the Turkish people are not unfriendly to the Armenians; in fact we individual Turks protested against the outrages, and American missionaries highly esteem many of the Turks, particularly of the higher class. This movement is dominated from the center."
Included among the new details is a long letter from an officer of Euphrates College, The American institutions at Harput, which had 600 students before the present persecutions began.
American College Nearly Wiped Out.
"Approximately two-thirds of the girls pupils," he says, "and six-sevenths of the boys have been taken away to death, exile, or Moslem homes. Of our professors four are gone and three are left.
"Professor Tenekejian, who was the Protestant Azbaked and representative of the Americans with the Government, was arrested on May 1. No charge was made against him, but the hair of his head, mustache and beard was pulled out in a vain effort to secure damaging confessions. He was starved and hung by the arms for a day and a night and was severely beaten several times. About June 20 he was taken out toward Diarbekir and murdered in a general massacre on the road.
"Professor Nahigian who had studied at Ann Arbor, was arrested about June 5 and shared Professor Tenekejian's fate on the road.
"Professor Vorperian, a Princeton main, was taken to see a man beaten almost to death and became deranged. He started into exile under guard with his family, about July 5, and was murdered beyond Malatia.
"Professor Boogicanian, an Edinburgh graduate, was arrested with Professor Tenekejian, suffered the same tortures, pulled out by the roots, and was killed in the same massacre.
"Of the male instructors four were killed on the road in various massacres, and three who have not been heard from probably suffered the same fate. Two are sick in the American Hospital; one is in hiding, and two are free.
"Of the female instructors one is reported killed in Chunkoosh, one reported taken to a Turkish harem; three have not been heard from; four others started out into exile, and ten are free.
"Of the Armenian people as a whole we may put an estimate that three-fourths are gone, and that this three-fourths include the leader in every walk of life."
Charles R. Crane, Treasurer of the Committee, has just received the following communication from sent to the American Ambassador at Constantinople at your request on Sept. 22, inquiring whether he could advantageously use $50,000 or $100,000 at the present time for the relief of Armenians in Turkey, the Department has received a telegram from Mr. Morgenthau, dated Sept. 24, in which he states that he could most advantageously use $100.000 for the purpose mentioned; and that while such a sum, carefully administered, would make a good start, it would not suffice.
The Ambassador states that the money received would be distributed through missionaries at Konitsa, Adana, Tarsus, and Ourfa, and through the American Consul at Aleppo; and that the condition at present is simply appalling as follows: "I implore my friends to do their utmost to assist liberally."
Public meetings will be held in New York and elsewhere, following the example of the meeting announced in London, which is to be addressed by Lord Bryce, Contributions may be sent to Charles R. Crane, Treasurer, and 70 Fifth Avenue.
A hard copy of this article or hundreds of others from the time of the Armenian Genocide can be found in The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts From The American Press: 1915-1922